In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, this year our team delivered cards to a large number of small businesses – those we decided needed some love and support for all the good work they do as local businesses. We also promoted our campaign on Facebook, and yes – you guessed it – we got a phenomenal response! Unlike 2 years ago, we decided to give away a brand new website to the value of $2000, and who would not put their hand up for that 😉

We had the wonderful privilege of attending Manningham Business’ Women Inspiring Business Lunch today. The food was great and the company delightful. Above all – Moira Kelly (AO), an international humanitarian and global peace maker – was the guest speaker and we were truly humbled and inspired by the stories she shared.

My latest light-bulb moment was born at a community event in celebration of the opening of a local play park, two doors down from where I live. It was a small intimate community event, the kind of thing you normally go to on a Sunday because it is local and well, free. I had a wonderful time mingling with the locals and getting to know the other parents better. Yet I was surprised to hear different languages around me and to observe different ethnic and age groups living in our area; partly because most of them are private people who keep to themselves, but mostly because I had a complete misconception about our local community demographic. And what was my (incorrect) assumptions based on? Well, mostly hearsay and ignorance I guess!

I had such a lovely time at the park that day getting to know my community that it has inspired me to take a good look at the other assumptions I operate on, especially bringing it home to how we run our business. Read more

Are Your Business Challenges Being Addressed? August 21st, 2018Kim Liebenberg

It was exactly two years ago that I made a very purposeful and conscious decision to establish an online presence for myself. I had already gained some traction, though not much, on social media through my sporadic but valuable posts and shares about how essential oils had become such a game-changer in my small family’s life. I remember so vividly the feelings of fear and self-doubt creeping in as I was making this decision. I remember thinking I don’t have what it takes to make it online, or I would never amount to these successful entrepreneurs and wellness coaches that are already attracting their tribe, helping and serving so many people. I just didn’t think I had what it took to “make it online”. I didn’t even comprehend what it actually meant to be successful online but I knew that it was the journey I wanted to be on.

Ever heard of strategic partnerships or partners? If so, are you aware of how they might positively impact your allied health business?

According to http://www.businessdictionary.com “a strategic partner is a party with which a long-term agreement is reached for sharing of physical and/or intellectual resources in the achievement of a defined common objective”. Gen Y entrepreneur and founder of The Entourage, Jack Delosa states “a strategic partnership is a win-win relationship between two complementary businesses”. Delosa believes that “strategic partnerships are the most effective and fastest ways for any start-up or early-stage business to win customers and accelerate growth on a shoestring budget.” Through finding these complementary businesses and leveraging their client base, you will potentially gain access to more targeted prospects.

Strategic partnerships are everywhere in business, and in order for start-ups and small businesses to grow and increase their reach, they are essential. Read on to learn three simple steps you should follow in order to find them, get their attention and then secure them.

For many allied health professionals and small business owners, writing a blog is a challenge. Not only does blogging take time but writing for the web is very different to any other medium. There also seems to be a genuine lack of reputable and informative information out there on how to structurally compose a blog. There are loads of resources on how to “start” a blog but none of these really hone in on the skill of writing quality posts. Understanding the structure of a blog post so that it informs, engages and educates your audience is the key to success, so let’s take a closer look at this for a minute. As always I will demonstrate with examples for allied health professionals, but the principles in this article can be applied to any industry.

Two weeks ago I gave you my Top 10 Ideas for content creation which I hope you have been able to implement and share across your social media platforms. This week I want to look more at content curation – which according to Pawan Deshpande, CEO of Curata – is defined as the process whereby

“an individual (or team) consistently finds, organises, annotates and shares the most relevant and highest quality digital content on a specific topic for their target market.”

Content curation becomes important for you as a small to medium allied health practice owner because it saves time. You already do not have enough hours in your day to get through your case load, so having to consistently come up with and create original content for your audience leaves you even more strapped for time. Content curation enables you to source and share interesting, relevant and evidence-based content that is going to add real value to your target market. In doing so it builds authority and enables your audience to trust you. In this information-saturated world we live in, trust and authority help you stand out from the crowd.

You have your website and have set up all the social media channels applicable to your target audience. So now what? You know you have to blog and share content that will inform and be of use to your audience but you haven’t a clue where to start or what to write about. It’s a common problem. The amount of content shared on a daily basis across social media is astronomical. Somehow you need to stand out from the crowd and have your voice heard.

Given that many practice owners are scratching their heads not knowing what sort of content they should be preparing for their audience, I’ve decided to share my top 10 social media content ideas relevant to the allied health industry.

Up until a few years ago we have been able to manage our social media efforts manually, posting as and when we have something to say or some useful content to share. This approach works for most start-up and small businesses, but normally only for a short time. As soon as growing the business becomes the focus, social media becomes a priority for engaging with and nurturing clients, and you will quickly find yourself too busy to manually handle daily posts across multiple social media channels.

As the second installation in our ‘Theme of the Week’ series, we have chosen to look at social media management (SMM) tools. There are a vast number of these products on the market and not all will suit everyone’s needs. To help businesses make an informed decision we are going to look at how to evaluate a social media management tool to find the right one for you and your business. Each SSM tool has different feature sets, ease of use differ and then of course pricing plays an important role. The best way to find the one that will work for you is to evaluate each tool, but you can use our list below to at least narrow it down to 3 or 4 that you can take a closer look at.

As a digital agency we build new websites, and part of that process is to help our clients compose content. It is interesting how many business owners insist on ditching the traditional ‘Privacy Policy’ and ‘Terms of Use’ pages to make space for more trendy footer links and widgets, or are happy to ‘copy and paste’ pages from competitor websites and adapt it based on their needs. This made me wonder about the need for these pages in today’s digital age, and whether or not the ‘copy and paste practice’ is enough to keep you on the right side of the law.

In addition – based on our experience – most advertisers on Social platforms, Google and other third party providers such as Mailchimp are blissfully unaware of the additional privacy clausesthat have to be included in your website’s standard privacy policy, so we will set the record straight with a downloadable infographic summarising the additions.